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👨🏻‍💼 RTO is about ego, according to study

Inside: data says "return to office" is driven by executive ego. Plus: PlanetScale, Revel CPA, and Honeycomb are remote-first and hiring.

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Remote Source
June 29, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Good Morning,

What a week of remote work discourse online:

First, Harry Stebbings, a podcaster-turned-VC who has never had a normal job, tweeted that remote work is “white collar fraud” and shared a clip of a tech CEO who claimed he can’t get any work done at home because he has young kids in his house.

The reaction to this was probably what you’d expect: many comments claiming this post was just “ragebait” because the premise was so absurd — and many parents in the comments saying it sounded like a “skill issue” that the CEO should work on.

And separately, the New York Times published an article by the popular author Dr. Adam Grant, who published a comprehensive study on what drives executives’ return to office policies.

Some leaders say they insist on full-time in-person work because it boosts productivity, despite clear evidence that it does not. Others claim it’s about collaboration, creativity or culture. Our new research reveals that the objection to any work from home is more likely to be driven by something else entirely: ego.

Dr. Adam Grant, Marissa Shandell and Courtney Elliott

It’s a fantastic overview worth a read for anyone who has also been confused and frustrated by all of the return-to-office policies in the last few years.

COMPANIES HIRING REMOTELY

  • PlanetScale provides a fully managed relational database platform for Vitess and Postgres, bringing scale, performance, and reliability.

    • From their Careers page: “We’re fully remote by design and are here to support your work-life balance. Enjoy the flexibility to work remotely from the comfort of your home, so you can focus on what really matters: making great games with great people.”

    • See their job openings here.

  • Revel CPA provides accounting and advisory services for small businesses and startups.

    • Their careers page says they offer employees a “flexible, work-from-anywhere lifestyle.”

    • See their job openings here.

  • Honeycomb provides an observability platform for engineering teams to debug complex distributed systems and solve production issues in real-time.

    • Their careers page says: "Remote is here to stay. You're not going to see a "back to office" email from us."

    • See their job openings here.

REMOTE SOURCE JOB BOARD

25,000+ remote jobs. Remote-First focus.

  • Remote Source is the only remote job board with a certified Remote-First filter — these companies aren’t about to force you back into an office.

  • We can ensure no scams because we hand-pick each employer featured on the job board.

  • All of our company feeds are updated multiple times per day, so you can be the first to apply to your favorite jobs.

Sign up today!

  • With a free account, you can view all jobs on the job board. That’s already more than what most remote job boards can say!

  • For less than $1/week, đź‘‘ Pro users get even more:

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    • Daily email alerts

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If you’re serious about finding a remote job ASAP, or you don’t have time to search for new remote jobs every single day, the đź‘‘ Pro plan was built for you. Try it out today:

🤝 HELPFUL LINKS

đź’Ľ The Remote Source Job Board has 25,000+ open remote jobs, all from hand-picked, established companies. It’s updated daily, and it’s completely free to access all jobs, unlike most major remote job boards. đź‘‘ Pro users can use Smart Match for faster job matching, filter for Remote-First Companies and Leadership Roles, get unlimited saved jobs and searches, generate customized resumes and cover letters for individual jobs, AND get daily email alerts for jobs matching their search criteria.

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